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An Australian Parliamentary committee has recommended that petrol and diesel cars be phased out in favour of electric vehicles in a report. This is not yet law but shows that the government is serious about reducing the dependency Australia has on oil and reducing greenhouse emissions.
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Australian Plan to Ban Petrol and Diesel Cars
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Bacon's not the only thing that's cured by hanging from a string.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by EJ on Sunday April 07 2019, @02:48AM (3 children)
So...they're trying to step up the process on that whole Mad Max thing?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @03:24AM
If you pay your entry ticket, yes.
But not on streaming, those aren't for Oscars.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @03:27AM (1 child)
I always had an issue with that, as Max really wasn't all that angry, nor did he appear to be daft.
It should have been Querulous Max or Desperate Max.
I'm getting *mad* just thinking about it. In fact, I'm going to write my congressman!
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Sunday April 07 2019, @10:50PM
Sure it's not "What, me worry?" Max [pinterest.com]?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @03:24AM
Banning petrol and diesel is a great way to help the environment and spur development of alternative mobile fuel sources and batteries.
And, as long as the don't ban gasoline as well, it's all good!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @03:41AM (45 children)
As with most environmental measures the poor will be disproportionately effected. While its no big deal for someone making 100k+ to go and pick up a new electric car its not going to be so easy for the 99.9% of the world making less than that. There isn't exactly a glut of electric vehicles available in the used market right now.
So to punish oil users they will increase the tax on gasoline and diesel, which will hurt the poor.
Or they will give tax breaks which don't benefit the poor because they don't make enough money to write any money off.
Or they tax emissions at increasing rates year after year to push people toward buying electric, making it harder for the poor to afford a new car because they are spending more to keep their oil car on the road.
All in all, another way to fuck the poor to benefit rich liberals and their industry buddies.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by EJ on Sunday April 07 2019, @03:49AM (18 children)
I don't buy the long-term benefits of electric cars. I haven't done a rigorous scientific analysis, but I know that batteries are made of some nasty stuff via a very nasty process. I feel like it's a bunch of smoke and mirrors to make people FEEL like they're doing good by switching to electric when it's possibly much worse than gasoline and diesel in reality.
It seems like a case where townspeople can point at that smelly garbage dump and show how it's very easy to see that it's bad for the local environment. So, their genius plan is to dump all of the garbage into the ocean where nobody has to see it. On the surface, it looks like they solved the problem and made the issue go away. What they actually did was just make things worse.
Just look at the environmental complaints with cryptocurrency. Now, imagine every single household having to charge their vehicles. I already get these announcements from my local power company during the summer asking me to help ease the demand on the power grid by cutting back on AC use. Now, let's plug a bunch of cars, lawnmowers, etc. up to the grid too. It's not like they're burning COAL or anything to generate that power...
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Sunday April 07 2019, @05:21AM (1 child)
Time to correct your "knowledge" [cnn.com], not every battery chemistry is nasty.
You know? BYD [wikipedia.org]? The largest manufacturer of lithium batteries by produced storage capacity [wikipedia.org]?
And the guy that drank the electrolyte from the battery they produce? That would be Wang Chuanfu [wikipedia.org], BYD CEO, worth $5.1B in 2009.
---
Aluminium-air battery [wikipedia.org]? Just aluminium corroding in a caustic soda solution, in which the oxygen is admitted through a nanostructured membrane to oxidize the resulting hydrogen [wikipedia.org], resulting in a car with 1100mi range [algemeiner.com].
Ok, don't need to drink caustic soda, but neither it not aluminium is a "nasty chemical"
Efficiency and range? Well, seems to be a bit better than ICE [sciencedirect.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday April 07 2019, @02:03PM
Remember leaded gas? They used to put lead in the gas. Often known as the Ethyl. Sounds nice, it wasn't nice. Very bad for the health. Bad for Brain. But the guy that came up with that one drank it. He drank the lead to prove it was safe. Well it wasn't safe and he got very sick for a very long time -- Lead Poisoning. But he also became very rich. Because everybody saw him drink the Ethyl, they thought it was very healthy( it wasn't ) and it worked magnificently for the cars. The cars used to go ping, ping, ping and fail very badly. Motors falling apart all over the place. With the Ethyl, no more pings and the motors lasted a lot longer. As bloodthirsty maniacs with Lead Brain went on crime sprees all over our Country. Very sad and that went on for a long time. Until they found out, beautiful Clean Corn can do the same thing. Much better for the health and it keeps our hard working Iowa farmers in business. Winning!!!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @06:52AM (5 children)
The biggest reason to move away from oil is geopolitical and that is the major reason why governments all over the world are interested in getting rid of it way more than so many other things that affect the environment and people way more and are still way more easily achievable. In fact, I will say it has taken a long time for governments to wake up to this now that Islamic "problem" has reached their own doors.
PS: I say problem and not terrorism, and problem means "in view of the government everything that makes it do something".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @10:14AM (3 children)
So why don't they sell this as geopolitical rather than environmental? It would probably have more support. Is it just the general practice to never tell the truth about anything?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @12:10PM (2 children)
No matter how they "sell" it, those whose fortunes are tied to oil and energy concerns do not want to spend a penny to "buy" it.
A major factor for leaving oil behind is geopolitical, but the primary reason for resisting it is financial.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @04:01PM (1 child)
I meant members of the general public.
I could care less about their fake CO2 theory/scam, but do care about getting the US out of the middle east and endless wars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @06:21PM
I think many - perhaps a majority? - of the residents of the US are in favor of using EV, renewable energy, etc. But we don't write the laws, the lobbyists who make large contributions do.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 07 2019, @03:00PM
Not really. For all the whining, the OPEC countries and Russia just aren't that bad. And there's no reason other than withholding oil revenue from that particular list to rationalize any geopolitical motive.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday April 07 2019, @09:03AM (8 children)
The second advantage is that it makes you a lot more agile in terms of both ends of the supply chain. A petrol engine runs on petrol, and often only on a fairly narrow range of refined hydrocarbons within that broad designation. Moving to unleaded petrol, for example, required gradually phasing in the supply side for the fuel and it took years before most places that sold leaded petrol also sold unleaded. It took well over a decade to then upgrade all of the cars on the road to support the new (but almost identical) fuel. In contrast, with EVs you can connect any kind of power plant to the grid and they can all consume the power. That agility also works at the other end: you can deploy cars with new battery technologies without needing any changes to the energy distribution infrastructure.
In terms of other efficiencies, while the batteries contain some quite unpleasant chemicals, the rest of the drive train is orders of magnitude simpler. Most of the complexity of an internal combustion engine is simply not present in an electric vehicle. The batteries are largely recycled now and, while it's somewhat annoying to recycle individual batteries in consumer electronics, disposing of a vehicle battery is not something that individuals will ever do, so can be handled in the same way that you dispose of any other part of a vehicle: via the repair and scrap supply chains. People may throw mobile phone batteries in the rubbish, but they won't do the same with car-sized batteries.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @09:58AM (5 children)
"Towns AND cities"... You really THAT dumb, or just too used to not THINK when repeating soundbites?
A megalopolis WILL stink no matter what - as the stink production grows with the area, and dissipation, only with the circumference. Make a human warren enormous enough, and the exhale of inmates themselves will combine into intolerable pollution.
For the same reason, average european city has NO problem with air quality, cars of no cars. Just DON'T stack people ten and twenty layers onto one another's heads, and you are golden. Never mind the even smaller towns.
Learn some physics, people. It is much more healthy than ignorant politics.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by TheRaven on Sunday April 07 2019, @12:17PM (1 child)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @03:21PM
This ploy was invented before the wheel was.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @01:09PM (1 child)
Air quality matters everywhere, and can be negatively affected anywhere there are ICE or power plants. If you think (and I use that term generously) that vehicle exhaust doesn't affect air quality I have some super efficient and environmentally friendly VWs diesels to sell you.
Back under your bridge, you trolling shill (or is it shilling troll?)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @03:27PM
No intelligence even for a credible insult however, let alone a reasoned argument. Pity.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday April 07 2019, @02:07PM
I hear that Europeans have very serious problems with Smug.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Sunday April 07 2019, @11:01AM
> People may throw mobile phone batteries in the rubbish, but they won't do the same with car-sized batteries.
the Italians: challenge accepted...
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Acabatag on Monday April 08 2019, @04:30AM
Let's wait and see how that scales up. It's a small scale thing at present. When a large percentage of vehicles have huge masses of battery that need recycling, it might not be a clean-n-easy deal.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Pino P on Sunday April 07 2019, @10:54PM
Emissions displacement by itself is desirable, as it allows use of stationary particulate and carbon capture devices rather than requiring such devices to be attached to vehicles. Presumably, such a device can be more efficient if stationary.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @03:59AM (9 children)
You are so right, brother!
Which is why those noisy ICE contraptions never made a dent in the only *reasonable* means of travel -- the horse and buggy!
More seriously, you're a moron. Worse, you're short-sighted and have a poor grasp of economics.
As prices come down (and they already are doing so) and the technology (especially power storage) improves, more manufacturers will see the money rolling in to companies like Tesla and jump on the bandwagon.
Just as with ICE-mobiles, there will come a point where the cost to own an electric vehicle will be comparable, and then less than owning an ICE-mobile [cleantechnica.com].
I am not familiar with the Aussie proposal,but, presumably there will be a long-tailed transition period which will minimize economic harm and disruption.
So, no, you don't have to sell your Exxon/Mobil stock quite yet, assuming that's what you're concerned about.
Encouraging folks to move away from fossil fuels is a good idea. And if the plan is implemented well, there should be minimal disruption and economic *gains* as infrastructure projects to support electric vehicles start popping up everywhere.
It was rude of me to call you a moron. But that doesn't make it any less true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @04:22AM (4 children)
> money rolling in to companies like Tesla
Bad example, see https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSLA/tesla/net-income [macrotrends.net]
Tesla has never made a profit over any 12 month period. When you buy a Tesla it's partly paid for by venture capital and other investors (and maybe Elon too?)
If you break down to quarters, the last half of 2018 was profitable, but not enough to make up for the losses in the first half of 2018.
Press from Elon https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/elon-musk-tesla-not-profitable-in-q1.html [cnbc.com] suggests that 1stQ of 2019 will show a loss.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday April 07 2019, @04:55AM (3 children)
Do you have a problem reading entire sentences? I said:
I didn't say that money *is* rolling in. I said that as prices come down it will.
Which is generally how it works in most new market segments. Better technology and economies of scale bring prices down, those in the segment early clean up, and are then faced with competition from new entrants.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @05:24AM (2 children)
> Do you have a problem reading entire sentences?
My interpretation of what you said is based on "normal business" development--
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tesla,_Inc. [wikipedia.org]
Tesla (started 2003) has already had 15+ years. Most companies I know are either profitable in five years or they go out of business, including mine (took just about five). How long are you willing to give Tesla?
This guy says four years for startups, https://www.startups.com/library/expert-advice/how-long-will-it-take-for-my-startup-to-be-successful [startups.com] , but big success might take seven to ten. Looks to me like Tesla is quite an outlier (compared to most startups), and I'm inclined to think it has survived on "Elon fever", not normal development and financials.
In the larger car market, there has been concern for some time about who is going to be buying all the electric cars that are in the pipeline, for example, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autoshow-paris-electric-squeeze-analy/electric-cars-cast-growing-shadow-on-profits-idUSKCN1MB2GD [reuters.com]
It's probably not going to be me. I can afford an electric car but I don't see one in my future, partly because I don't want *any* new car, they all want to spy on me.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday April 07 2019, @02:54PM (1 child)
Most startups don't actually do anything really new. Facebook, ebay, Amazon - just a bunch of not-particularly revolutionary software running on commodity hardware. The "innovation" was in the business plan, not the technology. To say nothing of the thousands of bakeries, widget-makers, etc. that are just doing what has been done countless times before, with slight variations.
One of the reason we see so little real innovation is precisely because so many people have become accustomed to a fast return on investment. Low risk, fast return = can't try anything really new.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday April 08 2019, @06:04PM
We wish Elon/Tesla all the best. But, Electric Car has been around for VERY LONG TIME. Possibly longer than Gasoline Car!!!!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Sunday April 07 2019, @11:42AM (3 children)
>Encouraging folks to move away from fossil fuels is a good idea.
This is a tautology. The devil is in the details.
Anyway, let's get popcorn. We shall discover soon enough whether environmentalists are for sustainable development, or a way to drain the remaining money from the old fashioned western style societies.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @04:59PM (2 children)
No. The above statement has none of the characteristics of a tautology.
A tautology is something like:
"Bot incorrectly used the term 'tautology' the wrong way"
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday April 08 2019, @08:21PM (1 child)
Among the definitions of tautology: (LOGIC)
a statement that is true by necessity or by virtue of its logical form.
The assertion was, "encouraging people to move away from fossil fuels is good". Now Fossil fuels are by definition of finite or looking to renew nature. hence, logically you should adopt alternative ones unless you consider desirable to run-out of energy.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday April 08 2019, @08:23PM
Looong was autocorrected to looking.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Informative) by jb on Sunday April 07 2019, @05:30AM (4 children)
Australia is a big country. Distances are huge. Not so much in metro or even regional areas, but in genuine rural areas and of course the great outback, electric cars simply won't cut it.
For example, take the Nullarbor Plain. The main road there is the Eyre Highway (which, amongst other things, contains the longest stretch of straight road in the world).
It is possible to drive from Adelaide to Perth (roughly 2,700 km / 1,700 miles, including a crossing of the Plain) in an average family car without bringing any extra fuel along. Last time I did that (admittedly more than 20 years ago), on the farthest flung stretches of road the service stations were spaced roughly one tankful apart.
An average electric car would have no hope of crossing the Plain (unless perhaps you filled the entire passenger cabin with spare batteries, leaving only room for the driver). Yes, I know long-haul electric vehicles do exist, but they are not the sort of the thing the average family can afford.
There are of course also much more remote parts of Australia where people live so far from the nearest shop (let along the nearest hospital!) that no electric vehicle (at least not one which the average Australian family could afford) could make the trip and it would be ridiculously uneconomic to deploy charging stations on those roads (some of which see substantially less than one car per day pass on average).
Banning vehicles which use internal combustion engines on Australia's roads would be a death sentence for those people. Hardly a fitting way to treat the "real" Australians, those who have the guts to follow in the footsteps of their forebears who built this country in the first place. Going back to using horses instead isn't really a useful option either. A good horseman on a good healthy horse can easily ride over 100km (60 miles) in a day, but that's not much help if your nearest shop/doctor/whatever is nearly a week's ride away (but you can get there & back in less than a day by car).
This sort policy might be workable in Lichtenstein or the Vatican City or perhaps even on Nauru, but it seems totally inappropriate for a country of the size and (outside of metro & regional areas) ruggedness of Australia.
It's also worth noting that parts of Australia (SA in particular) have the most expensive electricity in the world. So yes, banning petrol & diesel vehicles would also price the poorer third or so of South Australian motorists out of being able to take responsibility for their own transport at all, even in some metro areas.
On the other hand, if the Government were to introduce this but make a permanent, irrevocable (at least for the next century or two) exception for anyone living outside of the greater metropolitan areas of the 8 state/territory capital cities, that might just lead to a mass migration back to the bush, which would be a very good thing for Australia indeed...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday April 07 2019, @08:15AM (1 child)
I'd move there immediately would they have not fucked the NBN.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by jb on Monday April 08 2019, @04:25AM
Agreed. To make that viable though, it would have had to be a genuine dedicated media network (just like the existing copper network, only using fibre instead of copper), so that choosing the standards used for transmission would be a simple matter of negotiation between each subscriber & his ISP (just like it is on the copper network).
If we had that, I'd have no issue at all with paying for two transceivers (one each for my end & the ISPs) to get far better bandwidth than the default offered on each link.
But with the NBN (regardless of which access method exists in your area, and under both the current Government's plan and their predecessor's), like all shared media networks, every single subscriber in the area is forced to use the same transmission tech. And of course they standardise on what they "expect" an average household to need, which makes the NBN pretty much unusable for any business beyond a corner store...
Until that's fixed (which it seems isn't on the cards at all, no matter which party wins the next election), those of us who do most of our work online are pretty much restricted to living in metro or major regional cities (or paying 6-figure+ establishment costs to have some other provider do a dedicated build out -- way beyond my budget!).
One does not need a tin foil hat to see the real reason why both parties insisted on building NBN as a shared media network: it's much easier/cheaper to spy on than a few million dedicated links would be...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @11:50AM
In other words, this is a proposal by city slickers who can't see past the next Starbucks or Whole Foods -- places which magically generate food and drinks.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday April 08 2019, @06:25PM
They want to ban Cars. But, I don't think they want to ban the wonderful Road Trains. And possibly the Ban would be tremendous for the guys that drive those. Because so many people will be wanting to put their Electric Car on a Road Train. And have it driven all over that HUGE desert!!!!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Unixnut on Sunday April 07 2019, @10:08AM (10 children)
> There isn't exactly a glut of electric vehicles available in the used market right now.
I personally don't think there will ever be much of a used market for battery electric cars. The reason for this is as follows;
1. Batteries are consumable items.
An EV with a posted 200mile range (and real life usable range of 80 miles) per charge when new, may only get half that after 3 years. After 10 years it would not surprise me to find that you would need to charge it for a few hours every 10 miles, rendering it pretty much useless as a vehicle.
The first generation hybrids are already basically useless as an EV, and when bought second hand are used as pure ICE vehicles. The batteries themselves are expensive, so replacement is not worth it (you might as well buy a new EV instead).
Fuel tanks however, are not a consumable item. an ICE cars range will be within 95% of original range after 20 years. I have a 40 year old car that still gets the same range as it did when new. Barring physical damage, a fuel tank will hold the same amount of energy throughout its life, and a well cared for engine will keep (or exceed) its original fuel efficiency.
As such it makes sense to buy a second hand ICE vehicle, on the pretext that its range and drivability is pretty much as it was originally, giving you many more years of use. It would not make sense to buy a second hand EV, unless it is only 6 or so months old and has plenty of capacity left (in which case it would probably cost nearly as much as a new one).
Most second hand cars are 5 years old when placed on the second hand market, the 2nd owner may well use it for another 5-10 years then sell it on, etc... Cars in the second hand market can (and do) stay on the road for decades. I don't see any EV lasting as long as the old ICE cars. The BEV technology just isn't good enough.
2. Too much electrics
Anyone who buys and lives with second hand cars will tell you that the first thing that starts to go wrong is the electrics (assuming you haven't bought a lemon of course). The wiring corrodes, you get bit-rot in ECUs, sensors start failing or giving incorrect readings, shorts, failures, etc.... The body, mechanics and engine are the last to go.
Indeed every single second hand car I have owned, and others I know, have some sort of electrical problem. Thing is, because the core of the car is mechanical, it doesn't matter. The car still starts and drives and is still useful. At one point on my oldtimer the only electrics working were the head and tail lights, the rest had died, but it was still drivable (and usable) until such time as I got enough money to repair it.
However with EVs, your primary mover is electric, and heavily computer controlled, which means sooner or later it will go wrong, and you will be stranded until you go for an expensive repair.
3. Too damn complicated and expensive.
This applies to modern ICE vehicles as well to be fair. The complexity and computerisation has gotten so bad that the cars are horrendously complex. And as we know, with increases in complexity come increases in failure modes. This means more complex cars will have more problems, and correspondingly they will have higher maintenance costs.
Parts are also more expensive. Case in point my oldtimer (40 years old) and my newest car (14 years old) both had a electric window switch fail. On the oldtimer it was a 15 minute job to fix with a soldering iron and cost me nothing, because it is an actual switch with wires. On the new car, it required me to find another switch, because the "switch" is in fact a complete ECU connecting to a digital bus. Not only was it expensive to replace, it was hard to find spare parts for, and impossible to fix myself.
Modern cars are even worse, becoming almost impossible to repair yourself, and requiring expensive parts, expensive debugging tools, and high labour costs to do so. Likewise older cars are made with steel, which is easy to repair, restore and weld. EVs have to be obsessed with saving weight everywhere (due to the poor range), meaning they are made with exotic composites, aluminium, etc... and as Tesla owners are finding out, it is expensive to get specialists that can repair those cars.
Thing is, second hand cars, while cheaper to buy, will have exactly the same maintenance costs as if you bought them new, unless you can do it yourself (or you get a local indie garage to do it). However modern cars are proving too difficult for your shade tree mechanic, and even indie garages can't work on them (as they lack the manufacturer specific debugging computers, which are expensive as hell).
I can go on about privacy, logging of past history, and intrusiveness of modern cars (cameras everywhere), etc... making cars less desirable overall in the second hand market, but that is more tangential to the argument I think.
Personally, I think what will happen is that cheap second hand cars will cease to exist. It makes no sense to even buy EVs new. Rather I imagine you would lease them for 2-5 years, then when the range drops below being usable you switch it for a new model, and the old one goes off to be recycled, thereby never even entering the second hand market.
The way I see it. the future world will be a mix of EVs and exotic/classic ICE vehicles owned by the rich, who can afford it. The middle classes might be able to get some short range generic EV on lease (good enough for the commute and going to the local shops and that's about it), and change it every 3-5 years, and the poor will walk, take public transport, or use a bicycle (including those "battery-electric" bicycles, which are like a hybrid).
I am already seeing it where I live. The urban poor can't afford cars, so they bike everywhere, including modifying bikes by adding trailers for their shopping, extra seats. I have even seen even baby cot trailers attached to their bikes, with an extra seat added for the older child for the school run.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @11:17AM (8 children)
Wrong. Li FePO4 - discharged at 60% at 1C will get you 19y of life [powertechsystems.eu] - where the life of a rechargeable is defined "still able to hold 80% from the initial capacity".
In an electric car, there'll be less vibration to shake all the cables out of place and erode the insulation.
E.g. I've seen electric motors [wikipedia.org] going as good as new after 25y - just occasional change of bearing necessary.
Complicated they may be, for feeble minds.
Competition and mass production will get the price down.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Sunday April 07 2019, @11:59AM (6 children)
I have an electric car (older Leaf) and it's a great ride -- like you say there is so little vibration. If I've been driving just the Leaf for a week, then use my gas car, I feel like I'm sitting inside a vibrator even when it is sitting still idling (true with any ICE). As for complicated -- there's nothing but an RPM reducer between the motor and wheels -- way less complicated than a transmission with gears.
By the same token, it's only good as a commuter (it's awesome as a commuter). I can't imagine trying drive across vast stretches through the middle of nowhere unless I had some portable nuke like they put on spaceships to carry with me.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Sunday April 07 2019, @03:11PM (5 children)
I also have an old Leaf I got used. 2011, the oldest generally available Leaf. I can confirm it's a fantastic ride. Responsiveness is instantaneous. It's real smooth and quiet. True, the batteries' health is only 9 out of 12, and the range is a paltry 50 miles, depending. I have read, and can confirm, that driving slower makes a big, big difference in range. Even the difference between going 30 mph and 40 mph is very noticeable. If I drive no more than 30mph all the way, and not use the A/C or heat, I have a range of 80 miles. Not fun, but when you need just a little more range, good to know about it.
Yet, the Leaf could be better, and I don't mean the obvious complaints about the batteries. I'm talking about the aerodynamics. What our cars should become are basically pods with wheels, much like the Edison2 [edison2.com] X prize winner. It's frustrating that even with severely limited range, when every little thing matters so much more, manufacturers still ignore the low hanging fruit. No skirts on the rear wheels, like the first edition of the Honda Insight [wikipedia.org]. No drag reducing vortex generators on the trailing edges, like on the Corbin Sparrow and successors [sparrowcar.com]. Side mirrors are another drag. The Leaf has a camera for backing up, why not also for the sides? And, the underside. Still not as smooth as it ought to be. A hypermiler took a Honda Civic and nearly doubled its fuel economy with aerodynamic improvements [aerocivic.com]. He reports a couple of other benefits. The car is quieter, and stays cleaner. If the Leaf had better aero, 30 mph versus 40 mph would not produce nearly as pronounced a difference in the range.
Yet it's not done. Why? For one thing, people think it looks ugly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @03:38PM (1 child)
Except for those of us who are taller than average, or have a family that needs to fit comfortably in their vehicle, or that needs cargo room, or or or.
Consumers are fickle things. Aerodynamics and ergonomics and style and practicality need to be considered when designing a vehicle. The most fuel efficient vehicle may never sell more than a small number of units if it is ugly as sin and/or uncomfortable and/or doesn't meet consumer needs.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday April 08 2019, @08:29PM
But cars have shitty aerodynamics. Because they do not do much to the underside. Tried a BMW 330d with aerokit, eats up many more glorified cars in the Autobahn.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Sunday April 07 2019, @07:41PM (2 children)
One thing I do in the winter is pre-heat the car. I tried the scheduling thing but as far as I can tell, it runs the heat off the battery and I would have lower range when leaving. I got a little 1200 watt portable heater like you might put under a desk and just ran it off an extension cord. I start it up about 30 minutes before leaving and when I come back out -- all the frost is gone from the windows (I even have to open the windows a bit to get the temperature down to a comfortable level). With the heated seat and steering wheel, it would make my 25 minute commute totally comfortable without having to use the climate controls. I've noticed that using the AC in the summer is much less of a power drain than using the heat in the winter, plus when the ambient temperature isn't below freezing, I get more juice out of the battery.
At some point though, the battery is going to weaken to the point where I'll have to think about replacement or more interestingly, a DIY piggy back battery pack.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday April 07 2019, @11:29PM (1 child)
Yes, on cold, damp mornings, I've had a minor issue with the windshield fogging up. Fortunately, it takes only about 15 seconds of heat to clear it. Don't have to keep the heat on, and lose 20% of your range.
The piggy back battery idea sounds very interesting. I fear the upcoming summer heat may finish off the aged batteries, and I shall have to do something. And, I very much would like 100 miles of range. Would let me make a number of round trips I can't quite do now.
I thought public charging stations would be the answer to the limited range, but I find them of little use, in part because they are not reliable. They're occupied, or ICEd, or not working, or behind a locked gate, or turned off after business hours. You can't swipe a credit card to pay, like you can at almost every gas pump in existence, no you have to have an account with each different company in the recharging biz, and there are half a dozen of them. Need a smartphone with their apps installed so you can access your accounts and use the charging stations. And they're a long walk from my destination even when some are in the vicinity. Takes me about 20 minutes to walk 1.5 miles. As for ordinary outlets, there are frustratingly few of them on building exteriors. The place I visit has just one outlet, on a lamp post. But, there is a sidewalk between the post and the parking lot, so to use it, I have to create a tripping hazard. Further, all the nearby parking spots are handicapped. Much better to have the range to do a round trip, and avoid all those problems.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday April 08 2019, @12:46AM
Yeah -- I've never used a public charging station except at a Nissan dealer (level 2, free) once when I forgot to do a recharge (a full battery will get me home to town to home to town ... it just won't get me back home on the 4th leg).
This is interesting if it comes to the US: a refurb battery pack for $2850: https://electrek.co/2018/03/26/nissan-leaf-battery-pack-replacement-program/ [electrek.co]
Here's a guy with a DIY piggyback: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSqGBPBxfUE [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday April 07 2019, @12:01PM
The EV is conceptually a hybrid between an ICE car and a smartphone.
Therefore, the tactics used to sell it will resemble both cars and smartphones.
So, as a citizen I would be more concerned about making sure cars are repairable and components are standardized, so to let the market open to small producers and tinkerers. This in turn would yield enormous benefits for the environments.
ICE based vehicles are too deep into the rabbit hole unfortunately.
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(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday April 07 2019, @03:30PM
I agree that they're too damned complicated and expensive.
Thing is - there's nothing about an electric car that requires that. Most of the first cars were electric, precisely because it's so simple - batteries, motor, and throttle control. The first was built in 1828, 80 years before the far more complicated Model T. Today we have many similarly simple electric vehicles for sale in the form of bicycles, scooters, skateboards, etc. Battery, motor, and a lump of control circuitry the size of a golf ball. The components need to be bigger to handle the power demands of a car, but they don't actually need to be any more complicated.
The complication seems to come in because everyone is trying to market electric cars as the fancy high-tech sequel to gas cars, probably to justify the still-high cost of the batteries and recover the cost of radically retooling the production line. And of course, being able to charge outrageous prices for parts and repairs. But they're not a sequel, they're a return to automobiles' roots.
The consumability of batteries is an issue, but not nearly as bad as you make out (as others have detailed). The cost - well, that's a mix of immature (but rapidly advancing) battery technology, and trying to shoehorn it in to meeting the same expectations as gas cars.
Personally, for the forseable future I'm in favor of series hybrids - provide enough battery capacity for a 30 mile range instead of 300, and you cut the battery price by 90%, while still providing fully electric operation for 90% of the typical use cases. Then throw in a tiny, efficient generator and small gas tank for range extension. A reasonably efficient EV consumes about 15kW (20hp) cruising down the highway - a 30hp generator tuned to operate efficiently at constant load to recharge the batteries while driving could be far smaller, cheaper, and more efficient than the 100+hp engine in a typical gas car, which has to deliver power across a wide range of speeds, and is least effective at low RPMs, where high power is most important. There are various options for that, though personally I have my eye on Liquid Piston, who are developing a beautifully simple flex-fuel generator for the military, 30kW from a 12" cube you can lift with one hand, with higher efficiency than most fossil-fuel power plants, and only two primary moving parts.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Sunday April 07 2019, @04:07AM (5 children)
Because batteries have no environmental footprint. Everyone knows they just poof in to existence somewhere in China by unicorn magic, cleanly poof out of existence when they are used up, and there are infinity more where those came from. Right?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday April 07 2019, @05:42AM (3 children)
That footprint can be less than on-going reliance on oil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @10:07AM (2 children)
Results can be even less healthy in your lifetime.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday April 07 2019, @10:55AM (1 child)
Say... what [statista.com]?
The second largest deposit is virtually at my doorstep.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @12:18PM
It's too bad Venezuela doesn't have large deposits of lithium. If they did they could mismanage them like they do their oil reserves.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday April 07 2019, @02:15PM
I don't think so. I don't think so. Look at where the Colbalt comes from. Amnesty International -- very UNETHICAL!!!!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @04:10AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_Australia#Coal-fired_power [wikipedia.org]
Historically it's not looking good for reducing pollution with ~90% of electricity *production* from fossil fuels, although electric cars would move emissions outside city centers:
Aus has started on renewables:
At least they have lots of desert to cover with photovoltaics. According to this, there is only one factory in Aus making PV cells, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaics_companies [wikipedia.org] It's a branch of BP Solar. If they are serious about changing to electric cars, I suggest the gov't start by jumpstarting the local solar cell industry, else they will be sending a lot of money out of the country.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by CZB on Sunday April 07 2019, @04:12AM (2 children)
As a farmer, I've been using around a semi tanker load of diesel per year. The environmentalists who think taxes will save the world keep trying to get the funds flowing in my area, if they succeed, it will be worth it for me to start making biodiesel. Its just going to be annoying to have to do a bunch of extra work. Its not like I can burn any less fuel. Ethanol isn't any easier to make, and unlike biodiesel, is heavily regulated.
The third option is charcoal fueled vehicles like they use in North Korea. It has a lot of drawbacks, but is cheap if you have a lot of trees.
Still waiting for someone to build an electric work truck, though I wouldn't be able to afford it. I could build one, but whenever I look at parts I can't get it below $10k.
Personally, I think vehicle pollution rules should only apply to high population areas. There aren't enough people in the rural areas for it to amount to much.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @04:35AM (1 child)
Not a farmer, but had a great tour of a family owned Western NY dairy farm a few years back, about 100 milk cows and enough field crops to cover most of the feed. That day they had one of their tractors running a soybean press off the PTO. The soy oil extracted was mixed 50-50 with diesel, cutting the fuel bill roughly in half. They mentioned the possibility of making bio-diesel, but for now had concluded that the 50-50 mix without further processing (except straining for particles) was a good fit for their operation.
Forgot the brand of press, but they had looked at several (making visits to other farms) and concluded that one had a much better extraction capability as well as longer service life -- not all oil presses are the same.
They also mentioned that the de-oiled soybean mash was healthier for the cows, forgot details but there is something bad for cows in plain soybeans?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 12 2019, @10:47PM
I forget the exact kind, but soybeans naturally produce a number of female hormones, which are likely extracted in the process of pressing for oil. As a result the mash would be mostly the protein with dramatically reduced hormonal products in it (which would have become a contaminant in the oil instead.)
I am not sure if those products are normally extracted/filtered out from soybean oil meant for human consumption, but they wouldn't affect fuel oil/diesel much if at all compared to sulfur contamination, so press and fuel with the bonus of healthier soy mash for the cows sounds like a net win.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday April 07 2019, @04:14AM (5 children)
Mandate the creation of the necessary infrastructure first. All this does otherwise is choke off the country's transportation, which does about the same thing to the body politic as claudication of the blood vessels does to a single body.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @04:25AM (4 children)
No, no, let them go right on ahead. We need modern case studies on how a civilization dies. I don't wish Australia any ill, but if they're volunteering to take one for the team, let them. I'd rather watch a country other than my own kill itself first.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @04:51AM (3 children)
History already shows us this. Look at India [wikipedia.org] as a good example.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 07 2019, @03:02PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @09:35PM (1 child)
Your current attempts to bring down the USA do hurt yes. Please stop oh shill for the lizard people.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 07 2019, @10:13PM
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Sunday April 07 2019, @05:07AM (7 children)
So, how many fossil fuel power plants are they planning to phase out and how many nuclear and renewable plants are they planning to build to fill in the massive increase in demand for electricity that this huge boost in electric vehicles is going to require? Renewable will likely not be able to fill 100% of the demand for electricity this measure will take, so nuclear is going to have to remain on the table. It is is the only way to cleanly (i.e. no greenhouse emissions) generate reliable base load electricity available at our current state of technology. If they don't shut down all fossil fuel plants at the same time this will be an empty gesture.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 2) by jb on Sunday April 07 2019, @05:47AM (2 children)
Simple: if it's an overcast day with no wind, the State/Territory Government must declare a public holiday, since little if any work could get done anyway without sufficient generation, once the law requires absolutely everything to be electric & most generation to be solar or wind.
After a few months of that approach, productivity per capita in Australia will drop to levels below even those of, say, France or Spain ... which strikes me as just what some sections of politics in Australia seem to be aiming for.
Of course, with an "all wind and solar generation; all electric vehicles" approach, deliveries by road to local stores of food and other essential items will also become weather-dependent. Perhaps the end goal is to solve the overpopulation problem by starving as many of us as possible to death?
You're right re nuclear power too. Always thought it was rather ironic, given Australia's abundant supplies of uranium, that our government opts to let it all get shipped overseas rather than put it to beneficial use here at home. There are many unpopulated areas of desert (not all that far, in relative terms, from where the uranium gets dug up in the first place) which would be ideal sites for nuclear power plants (yes building transmission lines would be expensive in the short term, but well worth it in the long term).
(Score: 3, Informative) by deimtee on Sunday April 07 2019, @07:22AM
I agree on the need for Oz nuclear power but the reason they don't put them in deserts is not the transmission lines, but the cooling. Uranium makes a great heat source, but you need an equal heat sink to extract power. It takes a lot of water to cool a nuclear power station.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday April 07 2019, @08:20AM
Pragmatically, all that is needed is a good distribution network.
On the entire continent, is impossible to have sun not shinning and wind not blowing all over the entire continent in the same time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @08:17AM
Why do you think that?
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday April 07 2019, @02:32PM (1 child)
You forgot Clean Coal. Australia is fortunate to have some of the World's cleanest Coal. But, they don't have a lot of Oil. They've been getting it from Iran and a lot of countries that aren't very nice. But they came to their senses. They said, let's create many new jobs in our magnificent Coal Mines. Not in Middle East!!!!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mykl on Monday April 08 2019, @04:29AM
Not sure where you heard that, but Victoria (the South-East state on the Australian mainland) is primarily powered by brown coal, which is as dirty as it comes. Huge health problems for towns in the main coal mining and power generating areas. They're trying to wean themselves off it at the moment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @05:03AM
Let's start by not creating any more coal mines.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @09:36AM (3 children)
Surprise, fucking surprise. Australia, once again, making living more difficult. Good luck with that Auzzies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @10:59AM (1 child)
Fuck off, learn the correct spelling while at it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @12:23PM
Fuck you asshole
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @05:05AM
Wrong mod. This is insightful.
See our pollies for perfect examples.
Oh, look, and now we have an election on.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ledow on Sunday April 07 2019, @12:30PM (1 child)
Seems a bad idea for a country with dangerously hostile tracts of land, hundreds of miles apart from each other where if you run out of battery power, you wouldn't be able to recharge before you died, especially overnight. Whereas you could just carry a can of fuel with you. And one of the biggest power draws will be your A/C trying to keep you alive.
Sure, they have a lot of solar potential, and in the towns and cities that would work fine, but I'm not sure there are many rugged, all-terrain, solar-powered vehicles capable of driving the hundreds of miles across arid terrain to the nearest road.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @01:17PM
This is why I would recommend an amendment to this legislation that turns people's hardship and suffering while traveling into reality TV. Drones can scour the roads for "stars" and hover while nature takes its course. "Tune in tonight because you never know what will happen. But we know it will be bad."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @01:51PM
if a country is doing this to protect themselves from outside sources of energy, i'm all for it. If its to be 'green' they are idiots and should be shunned.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Entropy on Sunday April 07 2019, @04:35PM
Where electric vehicles are completely impractical. In some dense urban areas this could work great, in rural areas? Worthless.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Sunday April 07 2019, @10:47PM
I'm all for EV, but this sounds like folks disconnected with reality. Electric skates and scooters are pretty much illegal in most states currently. They can't even make that legal so that folks living within 10km from the city can commute and avoid the over congested roads and over capacity public transport that either breaks half the time when it rains (trains) or go MIA half the time (bus drivers).
Nissan leaf's been out close to a decade (circa 2010?) and we still don't have it in Oz - pre-order is finally out, but we'll see - definitely not in the affordable range as it costs about 3 Honda jazz. We have Teslas here but they cost a uni degree or more.
As someone pointed out, we'll still need ICE for the bushlands anyway until solar tech efficiency makes a quantum leap.